Monday 6th January 2025: Interview with The Mollusc Dimension 1/2

Hi everyone!

Just popping in from my writing hole (with exciting news in the not-too-distant foreseeable!) to say hello and wish you a happy new 2025. It’s been a year, and despite having a pretty good one personally, I am aware not everyone is in as lucky a position as I am, and I’m thankful for that. I wish you all a better year, regardless.

I also have here an interview with The Mollusc Dimension, whose first book The Weird and Wonderful Surviveries of Squid Horse released very recently. I met Squid in 2023, at the QND Writers’ group I’ve been running for coming-on two years now. The Mollusc Dimension creates autobiographical comics with three characters representing his different sides: Squid, Horse and Coolhead Mollusc. This interview will be in two parts, with the next part out next week. I’m very excited to let him speak. So, without further ado, here is he is, speaking to me in late 2024 (I am in italics, Squid in regular font).

All images included are © The Mollusc Dimension, 2024-2025.

The Mollusc Dimension is a British-born East Asian Diaspora comics artist and writer, who joined the Queer Neurodivergent Writers’ Group in 2023 (I think!). His comic memoir, The Weird and Wonderful Surviveries of Squid Horse was recently published, with the support of Arts Council England. Based in Essex/London, The Mollusc Dimension is an artist, musician, educator, author and maker of beautiful, heartfelt and hilarious autofiction-comics. Find out more in our interview.

Interview with The Mollusc Dimension

1. Introduction:

Hi The Mollusc Dimension! I’m really happy you decided to have this chat with me. It’s pretty bloody exciting to have your name – and face! – in a bookshop, so, first off, how are you feeling now?

The Mollusc Dimension: It’s 8:10am and I just woke up for my 7th hour of the London Writers’ Salon, 24 hour Writing Sprint so I’m feeling a little sleepy!

I’m excited (and terrified) that five bookshops so far agreed to stock it. [Scroll down to the end of the blog to find out which ones!]

As a self-published neurodivergent author dipping my tentacles into the world of books, it was a lot of work to contact just five bookshops! I wish I had the spoons to contact more bookshops and plan to contact a few more in the next few months. Bookshops are also very welcome to reach out to me though, understandably, they are super busy.

Beyond logistics, as neither of my parents went to university, I am quite amazed and proud to have written a book that people can buy in bookshops. I’ve created 20+ zines and mostly been active in the DIY art communities and grateful for everything I’ve learnt and all the connections along the way. I think it’s been “character-building”.

2. Artistry

I want to stress just how much this book made me smile, cry, laugh and empathise with Horse and Squid – Coolhead Mollusc seems happy in the world of music. That response isn’t a given, though. As a neurodivergent artist, do you sometimes find that you have to shape your feelings into something a bit more understandable for neurotypical humans?

Thank you very much for saying that. It means a lot when people tell me that I’ve emotionally connected with them and I feel that it can be most effective for me to do so through my art, music and sometimes poetry. Over the years, people have told me my face looks grumpy/scary or expressionless! I can never seem to get it right. This is why I like selfies. I’m at home, comfortable-ish, and I have 10 seconds and 50 takes to figure out how to look delighted.

As someone with ADHD and c-ptsd, I tend to have difficulty identifying my emotions, communicating how I’m feeling and have variable capacity to notice other people’s moods! I realised recently that this is also partly due to a lifetime of masking socially, around family and in the workplace. 

As a neurodivergent person I think what tends to happen in a “spontaneous”, in real life situation is that I might be overstimulated by the surroundings, the journey to the event, processing things that happening around me – and all this can make it difficult for me to effectively communicate “the bigger picture” (e.g. a summary of recent happenings) rather than diving into an overly detailed grumble of my mishaps or problems I experienced that morning or during the journey.

That said, there are certain conditions that help me to connect and one of those is creativity. I love talking to people about my creations because doing so gives me a focus and puts me at ease. 

As you’ve noticed in The Weird & Wonderful Survivieries of Squid Horse, music is crucial for Coolhead Mollusc’s mental health and wellbeing. Playing piano/keyboard live is very tactile and grounding – and I missed this when I tried stand-up comedy and just held a mic. Performing music is also multisensory in that I’m responding to sounds as well as touch. I started learning piano when I was 4 and performed when I was 7 or 8. It was only in recent years that I realised that playing an instrument could be a form of stimming.

By the way, you can check out my music on here on Bandcamp, music edgelord Spotify or YouTube or Soundcloud.

3. Characters and Selves

When it comes to Squid, Horse and Coolhead Mollusc, are those sides of you I have met personally? Or do they exist only when engaging with art – drawing, writing, music?

Well, Squid represents my “id”… and it also rhymes! He’s anxious but “very mindful, very demure” (as those Gen Zs love to say) and… he’s probably masking. But he’s also quite friendly and positive.

Horse is me in rant mode. Have you met me in rant mode Jorik?!

Not yet! Should I be afraid? Please continue (gulp…)

Coolhead Mollusc probably looks the most chill out of the three of them because he’s playing the piano and is therefore “not all there”. When I was a teenager, an adult who accompanied us on a school trip apparently said that I was “not all there”. At the time and for some time afterwards, I felt deeply hurt by this (reported) comment but now I’m reclaiming it. I’m an emotional and mental traveller and I take people to wondrous imaginary places with me. 

Don’t forget Joonkid  – the current me in the purple beanie hat! He’s probably the one you’re most familiar with, although he retains more aspects of Squid.

4. Relationships

I loved the gentle love story with Cloud Bear – you have such a beautiful way of representing people you love, despite relationships ending sometimes. Did they appreciate how they’re represented?

Without me asking him, after our break-up, Cloud Bear (my ex) gave me permission to write about/depict our relationship. I didn’t realise the full significance of this at the time as I’ve been writing about exes and people in my life for a long time. However thinking back to that is helpful as in general, I do like to try and be ethical.

While we’ve had brief and amicable correspondence from time to time, we’re not really in touch and I don’t know what he thinks, but I think they’d probably like it. 

I guess I didn’t write it for him, but for me – to treasure the positives.

In my poetry collection, i just want you to know i exist – poems by a British-born Chinese queer, trans-masc, non-binary being (2021), there are several break-up poems. Most of these are quite gentle – apart from one called Pandemic Moon which is pretty humorously bitter.

5. Anti-Asian Racism

No worries, we love a bit of bitterness in this household. You talk also about anti-Asian racism, which is not a conversation we are having in the UK frequently enough. When we as otherwise marginalised readers want to learn more without overloading the ESEA-diaspora members we know, where should we look for more information? 

I’ve been really fortunate to have connected with and been welcomed into ESEA spaces. “Asians Have Feelings Too” (the song and video) played a big part in that as it gave me a chance to entertain, uplift and comment through music and performance.

Below I will list a small selection of groups and organisations.

Some of these accounts have created information posts about ESEA culture, have highlighted practitioners (including myself, I’m lucky to say!) 

There are also events that non-ESEA allies are welcome to join for, online and/or in person.

Asian Leadership Collective – Amplifying East & Southeast Asian leadership. #ESEAEats hosts. Storytelling through food.

BESEA.N Britain’s East and South East Asian Network Advocacy championing ESEA voices and founders of ESEA Heritage Month.

ESEA Authors Lit Fest – authors and illustrators of East and Southeast Asian heritage, writing for all ages in various forms and genres including literary, fantasy, speculative and science fiction, and crime.

ESEA Sisters – Spaces for East and South East Asian women, trans, non-binary and genderqueer folk to share joy and resistance.

EVR ESEA – Anti-racism organisation with an intersectional approach.

Kanlungan – Empowering Filipino, East and Southeast Asian Migrants.

On your side – A hate crime and hate incidence report and support service for anybody in the UK who identifies as part of an East or Southeast Asian community.


If you’re on social media and even if you’re not ESEA, I encourage you to consider following and supporting out of solidarity. Someone you’re connected to might benefit. For example, I sometimes heard about events because my non-ESEA friends shared them with me or on their stories. “Engagement” via shares, comments and interaction is how social media works.

Via these organisations you might be able to find other groups and also many interesting ESEA practitioners!

6. How else can we show more solidarity with the ESEA (East and Southeast Asian) diaspora in the UK?

As a British-born Chinese ex femme, I grew up around misogyny, erasure and/or fetishisation in art, comics and culture in general. While I feel like I was luckier (?!) than some other people I know who experienced issues in their relationships, most of my relationships were ok except I was angry a lot of the time and also had self-esteem and body image issues largely stemming from my intersectional lived experiences. 

I would advise people who are interested in supporting ESEA and especially those who are friends with ESEA and/or in relationship/s with us to do some ally research which could be in the form of:

• Following and supporting social media accounts of British ESEA and ESEA.

• If you don’t do social media / much then once you have found some accounts you could list the websites. This means in the future, you could be more likely to recommend the websites/group/practitioners because you remember who they are.

Thanks you! Please come back next week for part two of my interview with The Mollusc Dimension.

Find out how to order The Weird & Wonderful Surviveries of Squid Horse
Homepage: https://www.themolluscdimension.com
Instagram: Squid Horse Comics & Zines (@squidhorsecomics) • Instagram photos and videos,